"...parrots, among the oldest victims of human acquisitiveness and vainglory, have become some of the most empathic readers of our troubled minds. Their deep need to connect is drawing the most severely wounded and isolated PTSD sufferers out of themselves. In an extraordinary example of symbiosis, two entirely different outcasts of human aggression — war and entrapment — are somehow helping each other to find their way again." What Does A Parrot Know About PTSD?[NYT][more inside]
posted by amnesia and magnets
on Mar 22, 2016 -
25 comments

Raymond Goynes went uptown to see Sonja one last time on March 8, a sunny Tuesday morning. He let himself into her owner’s penthouse duplex in Hell’s Kitchen. Sonja, an 11-year-old wheaten terrier, was sprawled on the wool kilim rug in the living room. Her head rested on a towel.
“Look who it is, look who it is!” Sonja’s owner, Mary Kilty, cried.
“Miss Sonja!” Mr. Goynes called out. For the first time in an hour or so, the little tan dog raised her head.
posted by Johnny Wallflower
on Mar 19, 2016 -
16 comments

A Florida woman (unknown if there is a relation to Florida man) said state officials are making her give up her beloved pet alligator — a gentle giant named Rambo who is potty trained, understands sign language and loves to dress up in costumes — because he’s grown too big.
posted by terrapin
on Mar 18, 2016 -
71 comments

Cat Funerals in the Victorian Era: "During the early 19th century, it was not uncommon for the mortal remains of a beloved pet cat to be buried in the family garden. By the Victorian era, however, the formality of cat funerals had increased substantially. Bereaved pet owners commissioned undertakers to build elaborate cat caskets. Clergymen performed cat burial services. And stone masons chiseled cat names on cat headstones." Ends with a lovely elegy for Peter, aged 12, by poet Clinton Scollard. [more inside]
posted by fraula
on Jan 24, 2016 -
8 comments

“Weaponized dogs are ever-present in humanity’s long legacy of colonialism and slavery. They have fought alongside many instances of human atrocity to perpetrate acts of physical and psychological violence that supersede the scope of a simple gunshot. European colonizers of the New World notably trained their dogs to “relish Indian flesh” by explicitly feeding them the bodies of the victims after a battle. Throughout America’s early history, slave masters and bounty hunters adopted bloodhounds as the primary means of tracking down runaway slaves by scent, which is widely depicted in popular media. What is left out of the popular narrative, however, is the fact that when they encountered people on the run, the dogs were often trained to bite and tear the flesh of slaves to hold them there until they could be shot, shackled and dragged back to their masters for public lynchings and beatings.”

“Then there is the Tibetan mastiff, a lumbering shepherding dog native to the Himalayan highlands that was once the must-have accouterment for status-conscious Chinese. Four years ago, a reddish-brown purebred named Big Splash sold for $1.6 million, according to news reports, though cynics said the price was probably exaggerated for marketing purposes. No reasonable buyer, self-anointed experts said at the time, would pay more than $250,000 for a premium specimen.”

The most important thing to be alert for is The Look. It’s capitalized because it is a Real Thing. At some point near the end of its life, your dog will make eye contact with you. There will be something about that particular eye contact that you will recognize when you see it. Your dog will tell you, as clearly as if they had it notarized, that they are ready to go.

...the subject of euthanizing her has come up at home and briefly in the vet’s office. Is this wrong? And if we decide to go down this path, am I obligated to be honest about why she was put down when relatives and friends ask?

The dog "basically just sat in that Quebec shelter for over a year and no one looked at it... And overnight here – I post about it, 8 people show up - and it gets adopted the next day." Fred Ni, who blogs at Pound Dogs, talks with the Toronto Standard.
posted by dobbs
on Jul 13, 2013 -
55 comments

People who keep llamas as pets will readily offer you any number of reasons: llamas are quiet, they’re gentle and affectionate, they don’t take a lot of work to maintain and, for outdoor animals, they don’t smell bad. Most people start with two or three, since llamas are sociable and don’t like to live alone. But as Katrina Capasso, a llama owner in Ballston Spa, N.Y., discovered, “They’re like potato chips.” It’s hard to stop at just a few.[more inside]
posted by Horace Rumpole
on Jul 3, 2013 -
46 comments

Fido and Spot weren't always generic dog names. Dogs and cats (and monkeys, birds, etc) have been kept as pets for a long time, and medieval pet names can sound very strange or oddly familiar to modern ears. [more inside]
posted by Athanassiel
on Jun 29, 2013 -
36 comments

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